Slow Summer Continues For Us Weekend Box Office

Not even Bradley Cooper could help the weekend Box Office out of the summer doldrums, with the hotly tipped, up-and-coming actor drawing a blank, after new film The Words opened over the weekend with a miserly $5 million. On an extremely slow weekend for ticket sales, that wasn't enough to topple The Possession, which managed to hold on to the top spot it took over Labour Day weekend with takings of $9 million. Lawless placed second with takings of $6 million.

According to The Los Angeles Times, the Cooper-starring film wasn't even the biggest tank of the weekend, with action film The Cold Light Of Day starring Henry Cavill taking a hugely underwhelming $1.8 million. The overall picture for the weekend was that the box office only took $67 million in total - the lowest figures since the second weekend after the 9/11 attacks when takings were a mere $59.4 million. Additionally, receipts were down 18% from the same weekend last year.

Discussing the poor performances, The Words' in particular, executive vice president of CBS Films, Steven Friedlander, commented "Nobody picks the first weekend of September because they think it's going to be a huge gross. You open films that you want to sit there and find an audience. Historically, it's a weekend where people are getting their life back into order after the summer, and movies aren't part of it. You're doing back-to-school shopping, getting the kids into the dorms, and soccer moms are back on the road."